| Glasgow Digital Library | COLLECTIONS | PEOPLE | PLACES | SUBJECTS | DOCUMENTS |
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Scottish Higher Education Funding Body (SHEFC).
"The key Glasgow development bodies, including the Glasgow Congress, are committed to making Glasgow one of the great cities of Europe. An essential element in achieving this goal is the implementation of a successful strategy to place Glasgow in the vanguard of cities who have prepared for the Information Society which will revolutionize access to knowledge and skills for all its citizens. The information society will lead to a knowledge-based economy with the potential for steady sustainable growth, increased competitiveness, new job opportunities, and improved quality of life for all." Researchers - the initial focus of the proposed Glasgow Digital Library project - will, of course, be key beneficiaries.
The City of Glasgow has had strong intra-sectoral co-operation for a number of years. Organisations such as CULT (Clydeside University Libraries Together) for Higher Education and GTN (Glasgow TeleColleges Network) have prepared a firm base for what is now seen as a timely shift to cross-sectoral co-operation, while the Mitchell Library is the largest public reference library in Europe and heavily used by university and college staff and students. The ideal would be information "never more than a bus-stop away" for Glasgow citizens. Many of the problems associated with such collaboration in other co-operative ventures relate to access. This proposal bypasses such difficulties by creating the Glasgow Digital Library (GDL), in which electronic resources will be shared, created and, if appropriate purchased, for residents of the City of Glasgow. It will investigate the provision of a single information source for significant research and archival material of relevance to Glasgow metropolitan area. The initial grouping is small, but it is intended to use the platform of the Metropolitan Area Network, Clydenet, to extend the consortium to other education related bodies in the City, within the lifetime of the project, and bring together material separated by ownership and physical location.
The project initially aims to assemble, catalogue and make available over the local Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) electronic resources which have been created by the collaborating institutions. Once such a collection is identified and is being assembled, the project will seek actively to create, acquire or purchase such other resources as will give the whole collection coherence, while concentrating on the wealth of resources of potential interest to the research community. This is seen as an excellent and cost-effective way of providing resources and services locally. It is also the case that there is increasing scepticism that unrestricted access to the Internet is beneficial. It has been argued that the provision of a strong and attractive set of locally held, mirrored or cached resources is a better and cheaper model for network provision. Compare the GTN concept of "knowledge pools", which attempts to offer a limited set of relevant resources available locally, rather than attempting to manage access to the anarchy of the Internet. This project will demonstrate that MANs provide the elegant realisation of the government's political ambition and will develop a portable model valid in other regions of the United Kingdom.
A Project Officer will be appointed to work with the partners in the identification of existing electronic resources created by the partners, the identification of relevant public domain information, and in the identification of coherent sets of resources for digitisation. The latter will form the basis of funding bids to other agencies such as NOF (New Opportunities Fund) and AHRB (Arts & Humanities Research Board). Approaches will be made through existing contacts to other local resource providers such as BBC Scotland and newspapers to provide reciprocal access to resources.. A server will be set up on the MAN to hold or link available resources. An analysis will be undertaken of the MAN cache to identify potential resources for mirroring. An aggressive publicity campaign will advertise the resources throughout the Glasgow area. Project results will be actively disseminated nationally and internationally.
a. There is a long history of cross-sectoral usage of libraries within the City of Glasgow and we would assume that the sort of usage demonstrated in the Peopleflows Project is replicated here. There is thus benefit to users in increasing their ability to work cross-sectorally and to access higher education irrespective of their physical location. It is worth noting that the universities have a strong tradition of local recruitment of students, while the University of Strathclyde is the largest provider of continuous professional development and short courses in Scotland, with some 35,000 accredited students above and beyond its 17,000 fte's. The College network is also a significant provider of IT training. In sum there is a strong and coherent community tradition of education which is both local and cross-sectoral.
b. Clydenet is one of the most advanced networks in the UK, but like all of the MANs has yet to exploit the different connection policies which allow easier connectivity to non-HE partners. This project will act as a portable demonstrator for the ability of a MAN to support the HE sector as a major partner in regional development (cf the emergence of the Regional Development Agencies in England).
c. HE will benefit from the greater availability of content. Bringing together significant resources for research into a single information source will increase its accessibility. There would be an enormous benefit to informing the community about the wealth of resources held in the city of Glasgow, especially if this included the depth of material held in the Mitchell Library, which currently has no electronic connections to the HE sector. It should be noted that Glasgow City Libraries and Archives will be bidding for NOF funding for digitisation of content.
d. Although this project would concentrate on cross-sectoral collaboration within the Glasgow Metropolitan Area, the experiences learnt are intended to act as an impetus to other areas, where MANs are in place and is in line with current JISC/UKERNA thinking on regional area networks.. Also local resources, identified as important for the Glasgow area, would have counterparts in other local areas throughout the United Kingdom. Once it has been shown what can be done, other areas will be encouraged to follow the original model. The potential is there for this project to encourage collaboration within other local communities and to replicate its achievements through other cross-sectoral MANs. Integration with CAIRNS will highlight inter-MAN access and co-operation issues.
Part of the project will be to identify suitable material. The JISC funded Catriona II Project clearly identified both that technical barriers exist to making material readily available and that large quantities of suitable and valuable research material exist. In addition we have the rich research collections of three universities, the largest public reference library in Europe and a large FE network. The nature of the project is quite specifically then to provide cross-sectoral access to materials across a MAN at marginal cost and to continue to explore the issues associated with the maintenance and preservation of distributed resources. Such material of interest to the research community will include special collection resources, rare or valuable items, slides, maps, archival material (including newspapers), material produced by members of the Consortium. Discussions have already begun between Strathclyde University Library and the Royal Scottish Geographical Society on making the latter's rich collection of images available on the basis of a commercial partnership.
Strathclyde University (lead institution), Glasgow University, Glasgow Caledonian University, Glasgow City Libraries, Glasgow TeleColleges Network.
The partners have been involved in a variety of projects and services which may be seen as providing the building blocks and experience which will allow us to expand and create and deliver a larger vision. The institutions of the city of Glasgow have a rich seam of nationally known experts in the digital library area, thanks to work on earlier projects and all of their expertise will be used to develop what is seen as a landmark project for the City.
BUBL: A JISC funded resource discovery service.
CAIRNS: An eLib funded "clumps" project.
CATRIONAII: An eLib funded project on locally created resource management.
CORC: OCLC Project on the co-operative cataloguing of e-resources.
CVU: A SHEFC funded virtual university project in HE.
GAELS: A SHEFC funded resource sharing project in Engineering.
Virtual Mitchell: A Scottish Office Challenge Fund Project:
Phase 1 digitises images of the city and links them to an existing text database.
Phase 2 will add unique holdings from the collections.
To emphasize both the shared and novel nature of what is proposed, the Project Officer will be appointed as Librarian of the GDL. The Librarian will work to a Project Management Committee comprising a representative of each of the member institutions, plus an academic from the Information Science Department at Strathclyde University and would meet monthly. The Management Group would work to a Steering Group, comprising management representatives from each collaborating institutions, plus two external members. This committee will meet three times a year. An Evaluation Sub-group of the Steering Group will evaluate GDL management structures and working practices on an ongoing basis and advise on improvements. Representative Technical and Reference Services Sub-groups will work to the management group to advise on technical and reference issues. The GDL Librarian will attend all Group meetings. The project structure would comprise the initial GDL consultative structure. This would be evaluated by the Evaluation Group which would advise on any changes required. A particular concern will be to adjust the structure to take account of cross-sectoral considerations. Each institution would have a local GDL Implementation Group. Each local group would have a representative on the Reference and Technical Services groups of the GDL. Local groups would be responsible for obtaining local user evaluation of the GDL service and communicating it to the Management Group. Financial reporting will be the responsibility of the GDL Librarian, who will report to the Steering Group via the Management Group.
The project aims to start August 1999, with existing staff dealing with the preliminary work, and to have reached it target goals by August 2001. If necessary, a member of staff from one of the participating libraries will be seconded as Librarian of the GDL, pending a full appointment. It is intended to appoint before the start of the academic year 1999-2000.
Goal 1: Initiate and develop an effective consultative structure for planning, implementing, operating, and evaluating the GDL (includes user evaluation conducted a local sites).
Goal 2: Establish the GDL as a virtual co-library of the majority of major public institutions in Glasgow Invite other partners to join (such as Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Glasgow College of Art, Hunterian Museum, Glasgow Museums and Galleries, Scottish Film Institute etc.). Establish GDL web-site.
Goal 3: Provide collaborative leadership in selecting, designing, building, managing and preserving high-quality digital collections of interest to researchers.
Goal 4: Provide collaborative leadership in identifying, evaluating, selecting and implementing innovative on-line tools and services for sharing, accessing, manipulating and integrating content of resources via the Glasgow MAN (include experienced staff e.g. BUBL, CAIRNS).
Goal 5: Develop a public information programme which clarifies the GDL's directions, goals and activities for a variety of audiences.
Goal 6: Participate and bid in other initiatives, aiming to fund three further projects by the end of 2000.
Goal 7: Evolve a financial model to enhance, extend and sustain GDL collections and services.
The table below shows planned project progress in terms of milestones and annual targets. An outline project schedule, showing start and end dates for individual project activities is presented at the end of this document.
|
Milestones (Year 1) |
Month |
|
Goal 1: |
Implement draft consultative structure for planning, implementing, operating, evaluating GDL | 1 |
|
1.1 |
First meeting of GDL Steering Group reaches agreement in principal on Goal 1 | 1 |
|
1.1 |
First meeting of GDL Steering Group sets up Evaluation and Management Groups | 1 |
|
1.2 |
GDL Librarian starts work; co-ordinates activities, in conjunction with the Management Group | 1* |
|
1.2 |
Embryonic web-site set up with links to representative resources and project description | 1 |
|
1.2 |
Management Group monthly meetings begin | 1* |
|
6.1 |
Ongoing identification of key R&D requirements of GDL begin | 1* |
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6.2 |
Management Group begins to co-ordinate additional bids led by appropriate individual institutions | 1* |
|
5.1 |
Management Group arrange initial publicity for the initiative in consultation with the Steering Group | 2 |
|
1.3 |
Evaluation sub-group meets; 3-monthly evaluation reports developing consultative structure begin | 2* |
|
2.1 |
Reference Services and Technical Services Groups agreed; set up; meetings start | 2* |
|
6.2 |
GDL Librarian begins to report R&D and other funding opportunities to groups | 3 |
|
2.3 |
Reference Services and Technical Services Groups begin work on specifics of Goal 2 | 5 |
|
Goal 3: |
Begin selecting, designing, building, managing and preserving high-quality digital collections | 6 |
|
Goal 4: |
Begin identifying, evaluating, selecting and implementing innovative on-line tools and services | 6 |
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7.1 |
Begin work on exit strategy (Goal 7 begins) | 6 |
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3.1 |
RS Group begins work on collection maintenance, development, management and access policy | 7* |
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4.1 |
TS Group begins work on tools and interfaces policy for GDL users and staff | 7* |
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2.6 |
Steering Group agrees basis for initial technical and managerial implementation of GDL service | 8 |
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2.7 |
Initial implementation of full GDL service and associated demonstrator web-site begins | 8 |
|
2.8 |
Local user evaluation of GDL service begins | 8 |
|
Goal 2: |
GDL established as a virtual co-library of majority of major public institutions in Glasgow | 12 |
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5.2 |
GDL Librarian and Management Group prepare draft of full public information programme | 12 |
|
5.3 |
Steering Group to agree programme; GDL Librarian begins to implement | 12* |
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|
|
|
| Ongoing operations from Year 1 (indicated above by *) | 13 | |
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2.7 |
Initial implementation of full GDL service and associated demonstrator web-site completed | 13 |
|
3.2 |
Steering Group agrees basis for the collection management policy of the GDL service | 13 |
|
4.2 |
Steering Group agrees basis for the staff and user interface development policy of the GDL service | 13 |
|
3.3/4.3 |
GDL now led by collection management / service interface policies; user evaluation ongoing | 13 |
|
1.4 |
Final Evaluation Report, including recommendations on an effective consultative structure for GDL | 21 |
|
1 |
Agree/ implement final consultative structure for GDL | 22 |
|
7.2 |
Exit strategy for the Glasgow Digital Library agreed; implementation begun | 23 |
| End of RSLP project, GDL continues under exit strategy | 24 | |
An attractive, well managed, and user-evaluated web interface to the GDL service and demonstrator web-site.
Improved access over the MAN to existing electronic resources, to new locally created resources not currently accessible, to locally cached internet resources, to the products of ongoing and future digitisation projects, and (increasingly) to co-operatively purchased or created resources.
Improved retrievability, usability and reliability of collections through resource cataloguing to agreed standards (In two years our goal would be to provide access to between 5000 and 10,000 discretely catalogued resources, with the primary focus on material of interest to researchers), link checking, archiving, improved online tools for resource manipulation.
Improved services through improved management control, co-operative savings, co-operative collection management (possible interaction here with SCONE project if funded), joint service provision (the consortium will explore the creation of a package of shared services. The most obvious developments are a local equivalent of Project EARL's "Ask a Librarian" and a local document delivery service building on the lessons of the LAMDA Project).
The Project will produce a report on cross-sectoral use of MANs, identify best practice procedures, and make recommendations of agreeing and establishing draft model IPR contract for institutions sharing resources over a MAN.
Basic (and evaluated) consultative, financial, managerial and technical infrastructure for the GDL, allowing ongoing development after RSLP funding ends through both joint funding and successful bids to other agencies (there are a significant number of funding agencies supporting content creation and/or "learning city" concepts. We intend to create a robust partnership which will be well placed to take advantage of these opportunities).
Exit strategy and forward plan for the GDL: operational plan for five years beyond RSLP funding. In effect we seek seedcorn funding to create a structure which can become self-sustaining.
Report on the project with recommendations and guidelines likely to be of value to other MANs.
Investigation of wider issues through integration of CAIRNS and work with SCONE (if funded).
Guidelines on the value and limitations (if any) of city-wide (as opposed to (say) Scotland wide subscriptions to electronic resources.
Collection management and user online tools recommendations for MAN.
Model and demonstrator for cross-sectoral co-operation in a large metropolitan area.
The project would use the guidelines developed by Catriona II for the management of locally produced material. In all other respects we would follow the eLib Standards Guidelines, Version 2.0, 27 October 1998.
Estimates are detailed below. The participants would commit a similar, matching amount of resource in the form of staff time and overheads. Clydenet will be used as the delivery vehicle; Strathclyde will devote a proportion of the time of its Intellectual Property Officer and its Digital Information Office. Accommodation and other resources will also be provided.
| RSLP | Non RSLP | Total | |
| Year 1 | £54,500 | £51,050 | £105,550 |
| Year 2 | £45,400 | £51,437 | £96,837 |
| Total | £99,900 | £102,487 | £202,387 |
The main evaluation arrangements are as described at 7 above. In addition, if other RSLP projects are funded working in a similar area, Glasgow Digital Library will attempt to establish whether there is scope for reciprocal arrangements for external evaluation. This would take place towards the end of the project. The assumption is that with such an arrangement, no significant additional costs would be involved, since they would be built into the staff costs of the projects.
Dissemination of the work of the project would be done in a variety of ways:
postings to relevant email discussion lists.
mounting information on the Glasgow Digital Library web site.
presentations at meetings.
participating libraries own user education and information programmes.
printed information leaflets.
published news items in professional or local publications.
In addition to the above, the project team would be happy to include any other methods of dissemination proposed by RSLP, provided that project resources were sufficient to implement them.
It is hoped to create a structure within a robust partnership which can become self-sustaining and will be well placed to take advantage of future funding opportunities. Other possibilities such as sponsorship and co-operative distributed support for the centralised aspects of the services will also be investigated.
This is a project about access and the members of the consortium will meet the requirements adopted by the RSLP Group. It is expected that a combination of easily accessible resources and new services will positively encourage cross-sectoral use. It should, of course, be noted that although this is seen as an exemplar cross-sectoral project, resources would be available over JANET to anyone based in an HEI.
Senior Institutional Officer: Derek Law, University of Strathclyde.
This proposal will meet all of the objectives of the RSLP CCM programme call for proposals listed under:
Section A2 - to facilitate the best possible arrangements for research support...
It also addresses the highlighted areas in:
F1.2.5 - the development of shared reader information services...
F1.2.7 - to examine how far it is practical to provide common access to research resources within a region.
F1.2.8 - to examine ways in which cross-sectoral access to research collections could be provided across a MAN at marginal cost.
F1.2.9 - to examine the feasibility of improved access to the growing number of non-centrally organised electronic resources and study how these are best maintained and preserved.
All of the institutions are committed to electronic library developments and have individual strategies to take that forward. There is also a strong commitment in the City as a whole to take advantage of the rich network environment and to adopt a leadership stance in the exploitation of Clydenet, as well as a feeling that a combination of the right time and the right experience is with us.
Institutional letters of support are included with this submission as separate documents.
| Glasgow Digital Library | COLLECTIONS | PEOPLE | PLACES | SUBJECTS | DOCUMENTS |
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